Gerald |
@Gerald If you want any recommendations on how to optimize Mind Thrust, I can give you some pointers. You've played with my mind thrust specialized psychic :3
As for my character, I'm still tossing around ideas for personality, deity, and so forth. Mechanically, I have a solid idea, so maybe I'll get started on that.
Oh yeah, your character is one of the most memorable I have gamed with, Hdane. He's definitely a real inspiration for my build.
GM Franti |
In short - This fugue state is giving me a lot of mixed messages. You remember fragments of your past life and hazy childhood snippets, but could have perfect knowledge over the arcane/history/the occult. Your have memories and feelings of guilt but are a completely different personality than you were before. Your current skills reflect your past training, except not always in certain cases. You can't remember ANYTHING from the last three years, but events a bit before than are also forgotten, certain NPCs from five years back don't ring a bell.
There are some backstories that work in this game, and some that don't. The more in the past your backstory events are, the more probable they fit in with the assumed narrative. I can change events leading up to the game, but the adventure assumes the players have done certain things, been involved with certain people, and have lived a certain kind of life at least as far back the the past five years.
I'll likely propose something for you all in regard to how your past life/name works with your current character, and work one on one in some level with everyone. This game emphasizes a trust between the player and the GM and the player ISN'T supposed to know what went on at the start.
Ember Song |
My character will be a rogue. Might be time thief or unchained rogue. Still considering options. I've got most of the stats, feats, traits, and drawbacks selected. Haven't decided if the character will be male or female yet. That will depend on the other PCs. I will add things to this profile as make decisions but probably best that only the GM look, as when we start, we should probably know nothing about each other and what others can do.
markofbane |
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I will work on a cleric. Franti, I know you expressed a preference for core races, but what would you think of a changeling cleric with the devout pilgrim archetype? I'm thinking a follower of Desna. Since we are looking at having a paladin and a barbarian, I think I would be safe with a character more focused on buffing and support.
GM Franti |
Changelings are fine! One thing to note, there is a changeling cleric in this first book, I'll change her race to human as to not have her step on her toes.
Cleb, I'll have a write up for you regarding some backstory elements tonight. We can conduct it via PM if you'd prefer.
The Morphling |
I am still set on my Shoanti Skinwalker Mooncursed Barbarian. I really like the ideas this brings me, and especially how it seems to interact with the specifics of the memory loss. I like the juxtaposition of a character from a culture with very strong cultural traditions being put in a situation where their memories of those traditions are taken.
GM Franti |
Important things to remember: there is a reason the player guide mentions that you have a feeling of guilt, dread, shame. You did something that you do not remember (things that the books have somewhat planned) that give you this feeling. You don't need to write these "dark deeds," they are taken care of.
Here is what I'll have you all do. Write as much as you want on your character's life. Feel free to make as many details as you can, I will work with as much or as little as you give me. You do not need to cover for your current skills, languages, and talents, these can certainly be covered in your deep fugue state if you'd like. Write, then, suddenly and abruptly, stop. You life is interrupted, the five year window begins. If you want to give me full control, just give me your character sheet when it is done.
You will not remember all this backstory for a while, but I can include elements of your backstory into the game, be it your history, NPCs, items, et cetera. You can also occasionally take vague, hazy memories at your own leisure. Likely nothing specific, but feelings, blurred faces, pushes and pulls to elements that remind you of a life you don't recall.
Read the above, tell me what you think. Mid-game, you all will recall your lives it seems. That'll be a hurdle we get to when we reach it.
Onto names, I personally like not recalling them. Cleb did raise a good point about that, however:
...Names are pretty basic to one's identity and if we can still remember how to do spells and skills and general knowledge, it would not seem odd to remember one's name but have no memory of family or relatives.
There is this line in the player's guide:
When the Adventure Path begins, you have no memory of who you are, but you have a vague recollection of your childhood and a hazy grasp on your early memories.
Without going into story events, the reason for the fugue state and your current recovered condition seems very much about the loss of an identity, and forging a new one. Your personality is gone, replaced, essentially with a blank state. I'd say that PCs shouldn't have memory of family or relatives outside maybe inklings of feelings of them. Maybe their kinship with their fellow PCs reminds them of a sister-ly relationship they can't remember, or maybe they feel their party as the only family they have, only recalling feelings of loneliness.
Onto your abilities, maybe you don't quite recall your skills and knowledges so much as you have them. A language, talent, or magic can even be a surprise until it first appears in the game. One might not know they are a wizard until they see a spellbook for the first time, recognize a language until they hear it, know they can pick a lock until they give it a try, have familiarity with a type of weapon until they wield it and it just feels right.
Ember Song |
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My character is ready. He/she (not decided whether character will be male or female) is pretty simple.
@GM: See profile for all the details and let me know if anything is amiss. No background written but I have an idea of how I plan to play the character in terms of personality and attitudes.
In terms of what the character brings to the mix of party skills and abilities, he/she is lightly armored with modest fighting skills (+2 attack, mix of weapons both melee and ranged), no spells, diverse skills with a rogue focus (best: Bluff, Diplomacy, Disable Device, Perception, Sense Motive, and Knowledge (nobility). Campaign trait is Sensitive Mind.
I have yet to read what GM Franti instructed regarding backstory above, but I'll get to that soon.
Ember Song |
The ability to do the time thief stuff is something I'll leave up to you to explain if you like. Link it to the old Gods or whatever might fit with the story. It could be something he has always been able to do and only later learned that not everyone was able to do the same things. Maybe it is part of his birth legacy or maybe a religious ritual opened up the ability or even something paradoxical like he went back in time, visited his younger self, and gave him the ability because he knew he would need it to survive what was to come.
Other than that, the story line I was thinking of as a mundane explanation of his general personality and abilities is as follows: He grew up as a younger son in a noble family. It was a big family and he had a natural ability to tell what people wanted and he adjusted his behavior to win favor by giving people what they wanted.
Something bad happened that forced him to use this ability as a way of survival or as a means to a specific end. Perhaps some other nobles conspired to cause the downfall of his family and he decided to get revenge on them. Or he just lacked ambition and knew he would not get much inheritance and so he set out to charm his way through life. Or maybe he was recruited by some organization who needed someone like him to infiltrate noble families to gather intel. Perhaps he was blackmailed into doing this for someone sinister.
However it happened, he began to survive by moving to a largish city with lots of rich nobles and laying low for a while learning who was who and looking for a family that would be vulnerable to his particular con. He'd create a persona that was allegedly a long lost relative or some such and get the family to invite him to stay with them. He'd milk this for what he could, seducing attractive members of the family or servant staff, etc. and figuring out what he might be able to make off with when he had to leave. When he sensed he was wearing out his welcome, he'd steal something to give him something to get to his next city and begin again.
It would be easy enough for him to stumble onto something cult-ish and fall prey to something dark and end up in the asylum.
In any case, that is the general idea. I'm cool with you twisting this around any which way to fit the story.
His personality will be highly self-centered and neutral. He's not evil and doesn't really want to hurt anyone. But he also doesn't have any scruples about stealing from the rich and giving to himself. He doesn't expect other people to be any different from himself and expects others will try to take advantage of him in the same way he is doing to them.
Gerald |
I think I will be playing a female character again. My discipline is going to be one based on Charisma, and I have a hard time playing my higher charisma males characters as anything other than really smarmy and cheesy for some reason. But this one won't be nearly as nice as Ellena!
I'm off to find an alias to re-skin and start building this weekend.
Pasiune Rhade |
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Here's the skeleton for Gerald's psychic. I need to get the exact appearance and some basic background points together. I also need to get my purchases together.
I love that avatar, so that basically is her appearance to me!
GM Franti |
"Keeper of Ancestral Scrolls" is quite the strange trait for this game. Wondering if perhaps we could make a special variant item for it tailored to you, like a diary of past scores you can refer to for a bonus to Nobility checks.
As for your Phantom: Hatred. Please indicate the feat you would like it to have, in addition to the two skills outside acrobatics and perception. Keep in mind it already has weapon finesse.
Please add "Murderous Command" to your list of known spells.
Please indicate in your skills that you have Acrobatics and Perception skill foci.
Pasiune Rhade |
GM
GM Franti |
When/If you have your skills and saves ready, please fill out the link below. I will need you to enter in your skills, saves, and initiative. This will make it MUCH easier for me to do things such as begin combat, Area of Effect saves, and group skill checks. There are two sheets, one for skills, another for Initiative and Saves. You need only put in the value for a given stat.
THIS is the document in question. If you have conditional/situational modifiers (such as a bonus vs. Fear, or a bonus to checks for a given subject/discipline), please add a note (right click, "insert note" on a given cell) to indicate your modifier.
Ember Song |
"Keeper of Ancestral Scrolls" is quite the strange trait for this game. Wondering if perhaps we could make a special variant item for it tailored to you, like a diary of past scores you can refer to for a bonus to Nobility checks.
Whatever gives the bonus is fine, particularly with these weird circumstances. I figure the bonus comes not so much from physical documents at the character's disposal as from the knowledge gained researching them. There are lots of reasons someone could research noble families, so if/when that becomes important, you can provide information about it. If the characters have access to their memories on knowledge areas, how they got that information can be left blank initially. Of course, if you want to have the character find a notebook with names and notes as part of the plot, that's fine too.
We can call it "Con Artist to the Rich". The description can read, "You began your life of crime conning the aristocracy. You kept a black book full of notes to aid you in pretending to be one of the nobility." But if it turns out he kept the book as part of some plot to infiltrate the aristocracy to spy on them or to locate members of some illegal cult, such pasts could produce a notebook full of names and histories also.
Ember Song |
Spreadsheet updated. I did not enter a number for skills that cannot be used untrained and which had no ranks.
Rivas Cartwright |
As for the feat? im kinda torn as the hatred phantom seems kinda like a slayer. What do you think of Weapon focus slam? I'm having trouble there.
Skills: Im going to choose disable device as its extra skill and put a point in Disable device and Stealth.
GM Franti |
As for the notebook, I'd probably make it like a masterwork item you can find later when investigating your old-selves, providing a bonus when consulting. Something you may find in your home, or whatever passed as one. I'd like for all players to have encounters versus their past selves at some point.
Things are looking good thus far, everyone! Getting really excited for running this adventure. The second book came in the mail today, so I'll be looking through that now. It seems that the first two books have dramatically different narrative styles (thematic dungeon for the first, sand-box like exploration for the second).
Ember Song |
The connection here was just that there is a character named River Song who was conceived by two human companions of the Doctor on the Tardis (time machine). This gave her some odd time-related abilities similar to the Doctor. When she grows up, she and the Doctor have a love affair and get married, but they encounter each other in opposite order in their timelines, so when the Doctor first meets River, she has known him a long time. By the time River's timeline ends, she has no memory of him but he knows her very well. It's odd and completely contradictory to the normal rules of time travel, but it's also a great story line.
My point is mostly that Ember could be a similar product of some odd space and/or time travel heritage that could be revealed slowly through the AP. I'm happy to leave that for you to work in if you like or leave it out if you don't.
GM Franti |
Ok I think I have everything in order except gear. Franti do you mind giving it a once over?
All checks out on my end! Surprised you only get 2 spells per day, but I suppose you're akin to a summoner so it makes sense.
I'll keep you informed if I can figure out something that works out.
Hrothdane |
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Working on stat block now. Looking like a paladin with the soul sentinel archetype from Heroes of Horror (it's recommended in the players guide, too). I'm going to go longsword and shield, so I'll be decently tanky, though I won't be investing feats into upping AC. I'll eventually get Greater Mercy and Ultimate Mercy, as well as Unsanctioned Knowledge.
Ember Song |
Pasiune Rhade (Gerald): Psychic
______________(Hrothdane): Paladin (Soul Sentinel)?
Rivas Cartwright (Guru_of_the_Sands): Spiritualist
Ember Song (Clebsch73): Time Thief
______________(The Morphling): Skinwalker Mooncursed Barbarian?
______________(MarkofBane): Changling Cleric of Desna (Devout Pilgrim)?
So this is what it looks like we are settling into for the party.
Seems well balanced. A couple of psions, a cleric, paladin, barbarian, and time thief (which will cover the rogue duties). Looking forward to the start.
GM Franti |
We seem to have most aspects covered, and the party seems like it has a good coverage of ability scores and skills.
I am ready to start as all the players are created. No need to rush, create your character at your own leisure. Think about what kind of personality they have, how they'll react to horrors and things beyond comprehension.
I am thinking about adding the Fear rules detailed in Horror Adventures. Tell me what you all think.
Eponine |
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This is what I'm thinking for my cleric. I am mulling over her personality some; I don't want her traits to dictate a one dimensional personality. I only very rarely play clerics, so if anyone has advice on the build I am certainly open to it. I am leaning towards a buffing character, with spell and healing support.
The Morphling |
I'm getting things together for my barbarian. I'm struggling with a name though - which is complicated even more by the fact that they don't remember their name.
Shoanti have a child name and an earned name as an adult. I'm unsure of what either one would be - maybe I remember one but not the other?
GM Franti |
Just a reminder when your sheet is done, update the Group Stats page with your skills and saves. Make a note (right click a cell, insert note) if you have conditional modifiers to a given save or skill.
I'm getting things together for my barbarian. I'm struggling with a name though - which is complicated even more by the fact that they don't remember their name.
Shoanti have a child name and an earned name as an adult. I'm unsure of what either one would be - maybe I remember one but not the other?
If you did remember one, your childhood one would likely be the more appropriate as you've forgotten more late life memories than past ones. You can even go by your childhood name again, only to discover your old one.
None is also an option. No matter what you choose, I have some plans for it.
Another fun part with your heritage is the tattoos that Shoanti frequently get!
Intro
All looking good! Wow, didn't realize that Changeling traits are perfect for clerics with their ability scores. And that reroll ability is a good one.
Intro
Everything looks good thus far! Can't wait to see it finished!
Gladiola |
I'm having a really rough time finishing picking my last trait, just because I know so little about her background and I don't want to make assumptions :/
GM Franti |
Finding non-backstory related traits is somewhat difficult.
I'd go for general, attitude based ones rather than backstory leaning. Courageous, Brave, Gregarious, Honest, Vengeful.
You can take some that imply certain things however and I will roll with it. For instance, Oathbound, but not remembering who or what you pledged yourself for. Unintentional linguist, and you can just add languages as you level as you remember you speak them. Addict, and perhaps down the line you feel a strange draw to the drug you don't remember. Friends in Low/High places, you just don't quite recall these people.
You don't need to worry too much. My advice is to recommend traits that reflect who your character is or will be, rather than who they were.
GM Franti |
Things are looking good thus far from everyone!
Looks like Rivas/Ember/Pasiune are more or less ready, while Gladiola and Eponine are nearing completion.
Can't wait to see how our barbarian turns out!
I've been peeking into other's experiences with the AP, seeing what works and what doesn't. Getting excited to start!
GM Franti |
Either roll your starting wealth, take your average, or take a flat 150gp amount if your average is less than that.
For Pasuine, as there is no way you can roll more than 150gp, I'd suggest just taking that 150gp as your starting wealth.
For the others, cleric has an average of 140, paladin has an average of 175, Barbarian 105. While the Time Thief doesn't have a listed starting wealth, I'd assume it would use the rogue's wealth average of 140.
Unless you feel like taking a chance, all but Gladiola should take that 150gp amount.
Ember Song |
GM Franti |
Going to try something new out as far as campaign tracking. Never used Obsidian Portal's tools before, but might as well try it out!
Here is where you can find it, it is still somewhat experimental. Take a look around, there isn't much, but it will grow in time.
As for the start of the game, I think I might prepare something a little different to move us past what could be a slow introduction. I'll need to see how feasible my plan is though. I'll keep you all posted.